From the Past: Moscow Metro

In July 1931 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR voted for the construction of a metropolitan underground rail system in the soviet capital. This project was overseen by Lazar Kaganovici and because of this fact the underground system was named after him till 1955. Apart from its utilitarian purpose as a means of transportation and as a system of defense, the project was also designed to show a powerful and elegant face of the country to its citizens but also to be a statement for the West. On January 1932 the plan of the first lines was approved. The first 11.6 km route was from Sokolniki to Krymskaya Square branching from Okhotny Ryad to Smolenskaya Square.

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Sokolniki station

Late-1930s. Garden Ring, tramlines near Metro station "Smolenskaya" on the Smolensk Squar

Komsomolskaya metro station, Moscow
Designed by DN Chechulin & AF Tarkhov
1935 / Photo © МУАР